Diversity and Inclusion

Our strength as a law firm begins with our people. Our mission is to recruit the finest available talent and then focus on their development, so that each person can share the best of what they are for the benefit of our firm, our clients, and our community.

Our history informs our diversity and inclusion activities. Richards, Layton & Finger was the first major Delaware law firm with a female partner, an African American partner, and a South East Asian partner, and one of the first with a Hispanic partner. And with our past as prologue, our current senior leadership is majority female, including our president who is the first African American woman to lead a major Delaware law firm.

In our community, our attorneys played a key role in the passage of Delaware’s marriage equality bill, and one of our attorneys is president of the Equality Delaware Foundation, which works to protect the rights of LGBT Delawareans. A Richards Layton attorney was a co-founder of the Delaware Hispanic Bar Association, while another serves on the board of trustees of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under the Law. We are a participating member of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, and we sponsor and support a wide variety of local organizations, including the Multicultural Judges & Lawyers Section of the Delaware State Bar Association, the Delaware Barristers Association, and the South Asian Bar Association of Delaware. Richards Layton was a founding member of the Delaware Minority Job Fair more than 25 years ago, and we support and participate in the job fair annually. We also interview at similar venues, including the Southeastern Minority Job Fair and the Mid-Atlantic Black Law Students Job Fair. Richards Layton also supports pipeline programs that aim to encourage greater diversity in our educational institutions. One example is the Jurist Academy, a program organized by the Delaware Law School that introduces diverse undergraduates to the practice of law in order to encourage them to pursue a legal education.

Diversity and inclusion, therefore, are core institutional commitments. They reflect our conviction that talent comes in every form and everyone benefits when we work in an inclusive manner as we continuously grow our firm into what it will be in the future.

Women's Initiative
Richards, Layton & Finger’s Women’s Initiative is intended to foster the professional development of our attorneys and promote a sense of community that strengthens our commitment to each other, the firm, and our profession. The initiative has a focus on the retention and professional development of women lawyers within the firm, the support of our attorneys’ professional and business skills, the development of meaningful mentoring opportunities, and the promotion of leadership potential within the firm, for the benefit of the firm, the profession, and our community.

The Women’s Initiative sponsors various types of programs aimed at enhancing the professional lives of our attorneys, including inspirational women (and other) speakers who are performance and thought leaders, community service engagements, and networking events to help introduce our attorneys to our clients and more broadly within our profession.

A Message from our ChairThank you for visiting our firm and learning more about diversity and inclusion at Richards Layton. As chair of the Firm’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee, I welcome your interest. I also welcome any questions that you might have, so please do not hesitate to call or email me if you want to learn more about diversity and inclusion at our firm.